A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

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Movie
German title A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Original title A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Country of production United States
original language Persian
Publishing year 2014
length 101 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Ana Lily Amirpour
script Ana Lily Amirpour
production Ana Lily Amirpour,
Justin Begnaud ,
Sina Sayyah
camera Lyle Vincent
cut Alex O'Flinn
occupation

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a feminist vampire movie of the Iranian-American director and screenwriter Ana Lily Amirpour from the year 2014 . It was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2014 before airing in the US on November 21, 2014. In Germany it was released on April 23, 2015.

action

The young Arash lives with his drug addict father Hossein in the fictional Iranian city of Bad City . Other characters are a drug dealer, a prostitute and a child. A mysterious young woman in a chador steps into this little world . At first it suddenly appears and disappears from the shadows of the city. The dealer takes her to his apartment, where she initially seems passive; but then she pulls out her fangs and bites off one of his fingers before falling on him and sucking his body out.

Arash comes to the dealer's apartment shortly afterwards, sees the nameless young woman leaving the house, finds the body and takes a suitcase full of drugs and money with him. From now on, Arash supplies his father with drugs and also deals with them. He meets the woman in the chador again when he stumbles home under the influence of drugs after a costume party in a Dracula costume. She takes him to her basement apartment, where a relationship is suggested.

In the further course, the young woman is the focus of the plot. She puts the little boy under pressure and takes his skateboard from him. It then glides more eerily and quieter through lights and shadows. She has contact with different people. But the only one she talks to is the prostitute; she advises her to reflect on what she really wants herself. When the young woman discovers the prostitute next to Arash's father and realizes that they are both drugged and that Arash's father forced the prostitute to take the drugs, she kills the man and makes the body disappear together with the prostitute.

The next morning, young Arash finds his father's body and wants to get out of town with the girl. While he is waiting for the girl in the apartment, he discovers the cat that the father has recently taken with him.

Although he hesitates at first, Arash decides to drive off into the night with the woman and the suitcase full of drugs and money.

Background and production

Ana Lily Amirpour was born in England and grew up in the USA, where she graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles Film Academy . She says she has been making films since she was twelve and had only worked on short film projects before A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night . Among them was a short film of the same title, with which she won the short film award at the annual festival of Iranian film in Los Angeles. Some of the supporting actors in the short film also play in the full-length version.

Both films are based on a graphic novel of the same name by Amirpour, which already uses the motif of a female Iranian vampire in a chador on a skateboard. For her debut with a feature film she received funds from several production companies, including from SpectreVision of Elijah Wood . After the success in Sundance, the film company took over distribution from VICE -Media together with 20th Century Fox .

The film was shot in black and white in the Californian oil town of Taft . The original language of the film is Farsi , all participants come from the exile Iranian community. Arash Marandi , who plays Arash, lives in Hamburg.

analysis

The pumps in the oil town of Taft and an industrial plant, which is only shown at night, shape the atmosphere of the film. At the latest when the young woman, partly alone, partly together with Arash, repeatedly throws the corpses of her victims into a ditch outside the city that is already full of human bodies, the film becomes placeless and in the unreal. Again and again the story is told in slow motion, while the vampire's attacks on her victims are in fast motion. Long shots with sparing dialogues or even without words characterize the film.

The scenes are conveyed by the soundtrack, which introduces electronic music with strong influences from the Middle East ranging from echoes of the 80s to hipsterism of the 2010s.

The film borrows from famous movie scenes. In the opening sequence, Arash leans casually against a picket fence in a white T-shirt like James Dean and drives a 1957 Ford Thunderbird . The mysterious woman wearing a striated sweater like Jean Seberg in Breathless .

reception

The film was enthusiastically received at Sundance and was recognized by critics as an instant classic. Quotes from the 1950s, 1980s and postmodernism are located in the film. For comparison, Quentin Tarantino , Aki Kaurismäki and Jim Jarmusch are used as well as music videos.

The title is interpreted as a provocation of the Iranian social order. The very idea of ​​a girl going home alone at night violates the rules of Iranian theocracy . A young woman is depicted who defends herself against the injustice she perceives and reverses the balance of power between the sexes.

The contrast between the Iranian culture and the feminist vampire story becomes smaller if one regards the emphasized ethnic orientation as a marketing idea of ​​the director and her team, because her family background is just a background while she and all participants grew up in Western societies.

Adaptation

The Belgian band The Black Heart Rebellion wrote an alternative soundtrack for the film and performed it live several times along with the film.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , April 2015 (PDF; test number: 151 063 K).
  2. a b c Rüdiger Suchsland : A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night . On: Artechock, April 23, 2015
  3. ^ Co Create: Director Ana Lily Amirpour's Guide To Filmmaking And "Back to the Future" Approach to Creativity , November 21, 2014
  4. a b Boyd van Hoeij: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night: Sundance Review , Hollywood Reporter , January 20, 2014
  5. Guy Lodge: Sundance Film Review: 'A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night' , Variety , Jan. 24, 2014
  6. Lesley Coffin: Review: A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night Is Weird, Wild Stuff , The Mary Sue , November 22, 2014
  7. a b Tobias Kniebe: Im Schattenreich . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 23, 2015, p. 12
  8. The Black Heart Rebellion: Cult! Live The Black Heart Rebellion plays' A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night - Live soundtrack. April 4, 2017. Retrieved April 19, 2018 .
  9. The Black Heart Rebellion plays A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, by The Black Heart Rebellion. Retrieved April 19, 2018 .